


What Spring Is Like

by versayce



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: High School, M/M, Not AU, then there's kissing, there's a dance!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4259364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/versayce/pseuds/versayce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“How about you, Steve? You ask anyone yet?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Yeah, right. Who’d ever go with Rogers? He’d cough himself into a fit just as soon as dance with you.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Spring Is Like

**Author's Note:**

> I'm having a hard time. So obviously - a high school dance, kids being mean, Bucky being a peach, Steve Rogers being kissed. I feel better already! (I wrote this kind of quick after work, sorry if it's messy... Would Steve and Bucky even be in the same grade in the MCU? Let's say yes.)

It’s hot. Bucky wishes he could cut the legs off his pants, but his ma would kill him and he’d look ridiculous to boot so all there is to do is suffer. How they’re supposed to learn a damn thing in this heat, he has no idea. Ms. Michaels’ heart isn’t really in it anyway – she’s just reading out loud from the textbook, asking them to follow along, not particularly bothered whether they do or not. A drop of sweat slowly crawls its way down the hollow of his back but he’s too lazy to care. If it’s not dripping down his spine it’s plastering his hair to his forehead or sticking in the bend of his elbow or making the back of his neck itch. Best to just try and ignore it.

In the seat to the left of him, Susan Lipwick is a little flushed but nowhere near like the sweaty disaster he must look. Girls. Bucky sighs, and she looks over, gives him a little smile. He smiles back, and she looks away, maybe just a bit more flushed than before. She’s pretty – dark eyes, thick curls neatly arranged, tied back, pinned up, just a few of them loose and framing her face. He likes that. She’s not looking at him anymore, so he reaches over and taps her on the shoulder.

“You got a date for the dance, Suze?” he whispers.

Susan leaves the flush behind altogether and tumbles right into a full-on blush, turning an alarming shade of red shockingly fast. Bucky likes that too. Something interesting happens to a girl’s face when she blushes, something that makes his heat-dimmed heart pick up the pace just a bit.

She blinks a few times, then says, “No…”

Doris Hayes leans into their little conspiracy from the seat behind Susan's, sharp eyes darting from Bucky to Susan and back. “Why?” she teases. “You asking, Barnes?”

Bucky smiles at her all easy and charming, then turns the smile on Susan. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

Susan drops her hands in her lap, nervous, and shoots a look back at Doris, who rolls her eyes like Bucky’s the biggest ham she’s ever met. Maybe he is. But hey, who cares? Susan’s pretty and smart and he likes her smile, even her nervous fidgeting. She pretends to think about it, but he can tell she’s really just trying to figure out how to say yes without seeming too eager. She settles on “Ok Bucky, sure,” then gives him a little smile and tucks a stray curl behind her ear and Bucky’s kind of a goner.

Then she leans forward a little, looks just over Bucky’s shoulder, says, “How about you, Steve? You ask anyone yet?”

Bucky cringes. Susan's just being friendly, but of course Steve hasn't asked anyone, not yet. Not ever, if he keeps going the way he is, all deadly serious without a lick of self-confidence to boot. Not that it's going to stop him from teasing Bucky about this later, sweet-talking Suzie Lipwick while Ms. Michaels drones on about the Ten Percent Plan. Maybe he'll roll his eyes like Doris did. But when Bucky turns around to look at him, Steve seems kind of proud instead, smiling that private little smile of his and sketching abstract designs in the margins of his notebook. He's about to answer, make some excuse, but Doris interrupts.

“Yeah, right." She scrunches up her face. "Who’d ever go with Rogers? He’d cough himself into a fit just as soon as dance with you.”

“Dee!” Susan whips around and smacks her on the arm. “That’s mean!”

Half the class pivot in their seats to look. The other half pretend not to, but sneak peeks. Steve’s smile falters and dissolves like it was never even there but otherwise he doesn’t react. Just keeps on scratching out shapes with his pencil without missing a beat.

Bucky watches Steve’s face break into a frown, then settle into a poor approximation of unbothered calm, and something in his chest aches so bad he almost reaches up a hand to rub at it through his shirt.

You can’t hit a girl, sure, but Bucky’s got a little sister so he knows there’s other ways of getting even. He sneaks away at lunch time and empties a single serve carton of milk into her book bag, where it pools at the bottom and curdles in the heat and stinks to high heaven for days, no matter that she washes it out. It’s juvenile and petty, but then again so is she.

Steve is quiet on the walk home. Bucky tries to say something, tries to make it better somehow, but Steve just says, “Leave it,” and that’s that. They don’t say anything the rest of the way. They both know, no one would go with Steve. Bucky thinks he should tell him it’s not just that he’s small, that he’s sick – it’s something in the way he is, how he goes about things. Too honest, straightforward, letting everything about himself show without hiding anything away. Looking just a bit too long, saying what he means in that earnest way he has. Bucky thinks he could maybe give him some pointers on how to hold back a bit to get them interested, but the thing is – he doesn’t want to. The thing is – he likes Steve just the way he is. And if the Dorises of the world don’t, well, Steve’s probably no worse off for it. Probably.

* * *

It’s been hot for weeks and the night of the dance is no different. The jacket Bucky wears is definitely just for show but he’s not about to take it off, no matter how much he sweats inside it. He looks good, if he does say so himself – shoes shined, hair parted just right, tie done up nice and neat (thanks to Steve, who tsk’d when he saw the mess Bucky made of it and then had it looking decent in three seconds flat).

Steve comes along even though he doesn’t have a date. He likes to listen to the band play, he says. Doesn’t mind not dancing, he’d just step on the poor girl’s toes anyway. Susan - Suzie now - meets them outside the school, looking drop-dead delightful with her curls shining and a sweet powder blue dress that shows her shoulders. There’s already music drifting out of the school’s gymnasium in short bursts whenever the doors open and chattering kids wander in or out.

Bucky’s jacket comes off somewhere after the fourth dance. He tosses it at Steve, who’s milling around the back wall of the gymnasium with a glass of punch, most definitely not making any attempt at asking any girls to dance. Bucky spots him again a few times, then loses track of him when Suzie puts her arms around his neck and presses her face to his chest. They sway close and slow for a while, then the music picks up again and they work up a sweat gliding around the room and getting a bit bold with where they put their hands until one of the chaperons shoots them a disapproving look and they move apart, laughing and flushed.

Suzie goes to freshen up and Bucky scans the gym for Steve, wants to check if he’s having an okay time, but he’s not walking the perimeter anymore, not making nervous, fruitless small talk with girls who are just being polite. Steve wouldn’t have left without him though, so Bucky takes a quick look outside, doesn’t find him, then pops back inside to check the stairwells. Sure enough, there’s Steve, sitting on the stairs, Bucky’s jacket neatly folded across his knees, head resting against the cool concrete wall, eyes closed. Bucky sits down next to him but Steve doesn’t move.

“Hey,” Bucky says.

“Hey,” Steve answers, not opening his eyes.

It’s cooler in the stairwell, in the dark, and the music’s coming in small and quiet through the heavy fire doors. They sit together for a while, not saying anything. Bucky’s breathing evens out a bit, his sweat cools. Suddenly he’s thirsty but Steve’s punch glass is nowhere to be seen.

Bucky’s come down a bit from the dancing and the heat and Suzie’s hands on him. Steve still hasn’t moved so Bucky looks over at him, knocks a knee into his and says, “You okay pal?”

It takes a few seconds, just a bit too long to pass for casual, before Steve says, “Not really.”

“You just gotta do it,” Bucky tells him. “Go back in there, find a girl alone, any girl, it doesn’t matter, and ask her. 'Wanna dance?' That’s it. Two little words and you’re golden.”

Steve huffs out a laugh, but it’s just on this side of derisive. He’s not buying it. Bucky’s not sure he should be, but what else is he supposed to say?

“Doris was right, Buck,” he nearly whispers, so quiet. “Who’d ever go with me?”

“Oh, come on, you’re not still worrying over that are you?”

Steve sighs, and it feels like he’s folding in smaller and smaller into himself. His fingers are twined in the fabric of Bucky’s folded up jacket on his lap.

“You’re not half as bad as you think, Stevie.”

A beat passes. Then – “Sure.”

“I mean it, you’re not some Quasimodo. Sure you’re not the biggest guy around, but you’re not hopeless, you know. Come on.” Bucky puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder, and that gets him moving, turning his face away from the wall. He looks at Bucky, miserable, like he’d rather be anywhere else, and some fluttering thing wakes up in Bucky's belly. Because Steve’s not bad looking, not at all. He wants to tell him, but he’s worried it won’t come out right.

Steve looks down at Bucky’s hand on his shoulder, then he looks back up at him. This is it, Bucky wants to say, this is the thing you do that scares people off, when you look at them like this, when you tell them exactly what it is that’s going on in that head of yours. But he stays quiet because he can tell Steve’s struggling with something, some question that he’s inevitably going to put into words, no matter what, because that’s Steve for you.

Bucky waits, and Steve says - stuttering, but he says it – “What’s it like?”

Bucky frowns, tilts his head, and Steve clarifies – “You know… With girls. Dancing. Just. You know. I never even kissed a girl,” and Steve laughs at himself, ducks down his head, embarrassed.

He should say something. He should make a joke or clap Steve on the back and tell him not to worry, that he just hasn’t found the right girl. But the longer he says nothing the harder it becomes to get going. It’s a cold blue light in there from the small stairwell window and Bucky thinks maybe he’s crazy, but Steve looks beautiful. Not in the same way Suzie is, all exhilarating and new – but in his own small, quiet way. In a way Bucky’s known since they were kids. Just like he knows that if he leans in now, Steve won’t pull away. So he does. He looks at Steve up close, manages a smile, says, “It’s like this,” and then he kisses him.

He means for it to be small and sweet but it figures, it just figures, that as soon as their lips touch Steve makes a strangled noise and opens up to it, of course, because he never does anything by halves. Bucky doesn’t even have to try very hard to be honest with himself to admit that he loves it – the way Steve’s hands come up from playing with the jacket in his lap to tangle in Bucky’s sweat-soaked shirt front instead, how Steve’s eyes slide closed instantly but his mouth opens more and more with every press of their lips against each other, how he downright shudders when Bucky’s tongue slides against his.

Steve doesn’t kiss so much as lets himself be kissed, and that’s just fine by Bucky because he’s having a hell of a time doing it. But then their teeth jar together and Bucky realizes he’s leaned in so much that he’s all but shoved Steve up against the wall. He has one hand wrapped around the back of Steve’s neck, keeping him close. Bucky’s other hand is snaking its way down Steve’s side, fingertips dangerously close to dipping down past his waistband, and he’s got to stop right now because even just kissing your best friend in a school stairwell could get you in a world of trouble, and he’s got worse things than kissing on his mind.

So Bucky mutters ‘Sorry,’ against Steve’s mouth (as in ‘Sorry I have to stop now,’ not ‘Sorry I did this,’ and he’s sure by the way Steve clings a little before letting go that he understands) and then he scoots away, leans back against the railing on the other side of the step they’re sharing, and tries to get his breathing under control. Steve looks at him, one hand coming up to his mouth, fingers tracing the places Bucky’s lips had been.

“Okay,” Bucky says, “so it’s not usually like that at all…”

Steve smiles at that. “Oh yeah?”

Later they’ll have time to worry about what this means. About what they’re going (or not going) to do about it. Bucky can’t think about that yet because Steve looks good. He looks happy, and it’s because of something Bucky did. Just a small thing, but if he’d known he had the power to dissipate the constant cloud Steve walked under, even just a little, he might have done this a lot sooner.

Then the door to the gym opens – light and music spill into their stairwell – and Suzie peers in. She says, “Found you!” and Steve smiles, so Bucky smiles too.


End file.
